The Power of a Question

When I was 30, I lived in a largely rent-controlled building in New York City with my (then) girlfriend, who was also my age. There were nine other residents on our floor: a young couple in their 20’s, and seven single elderly widows/widowers in their 70’s and 80’s.

The average age of our floor was 58. No one was 58.

While direct mailers were carpet bombing us with brochures to switch our 401K funds to bonds, the residents of our building were either living off of pensions or just beginning to invest. Trees were being slaughtered because someone asked “What’s the average age of that building?”

Every time we boil our marketing data down to a “what” and leave it at that, we make the same mistake.

Success lies in your willingness to ask—and answer—just one more question than your competitor.

About Tom Webster

Tom Webster is Vice President of Strategy for Edison Research, a custom market research company best known as the sole providers of exit polling data during US elections for all the major news networks. He is also co-author with Tim Hayden of the upcoming book, The Mobile Commerce Revolution. Tom has nearly 20 years of experience researching consumer usage of technology, new media and social networking, and is the principal author of a number of widely-cited studies. He writes about these topics and more at BrandSavant.com.